Page 66 of Hogging the Hunk
Rising to her feet, Ellie brushed off her hands. “Should we go look?”
I did the same as Ellie and I offered to help Beckett up. “Let me see if I’m lucky enough to get any signal on my phone. I don’t want to be up there if a second wave is going to blow through.”
By some miracle, I still had a faint signal. It took several minutes to find any reception, but when the radar finally loaded on my screen, the angry red storm cloud that had been on the radar dissipated into nothing as it passed over our small town. We were due for a quiet, cool spring night.
“I think it’s safe. Let me grab the stuff out of the way of the door.” Bringing down the cinder blocks, Beckett helped with the softener salt bag.
Ellie was at the top of the stairs, hesitating before opening it.
“It’s alright,” Beckett encouraged. “I doubt anything’s going to jump out at you.”
“Maybe she’s like Dorothy and hoping the world will be in technicolor when she opens the door,” I quipped.
Even in the dim light of my phone’s flashlight, I was privy to the full measure of Ellie’s scornful eye roll. “Way to age yourself, Dad. Wasn’t that movie made, like, a hundred years ago?”
“Ah ha.” I held up my finger triumphantly. “But you understood the reference.”
“Only because you’ve made me watch it every year with you.”
The noise Beckett made was just as much a snort as it was a giggle. “You make her watch The Wizard of Oz?”
“Yeah. What would you watch with her? Sappy romantic comedies?” I gagged theatrically. “The only thing worse are princess movies. I cannot get into them, no matter the spin Hollywood puts on them.”
“Don’t hate on the princesses.” Beckett playfully swiped at my arm. “They’re not so bad. Mostly though, I prefer thrillers. Stuff that makes you jump with surprise. I love to try to figure out who the bad guy is or how he’s going to do his bad guy stuff before it’s too late.”
Ellie held up her hand for Beckett to high-five. “Next movie night, she gets to pick.”
With one casually innocent announcement, Ellie put a cherry on top of the day. Beckett and I exchanged a look. I shrugged. Beckett grinned.
Out of the basement and through the utility closet was a bit like venturing into Oz. Everything in the main clinic appeared relatively unharmed, although there were papers scattered like confetti all over the place. The front door had blown open, spraying the lobby with rain and mud. The chairs were askew and a gust of wind must have gotten a hold of the contents of Bonita’s desk. She would have a fit. All her organizational skills ruined in the space of a few seconds. If that’s the worst of what we got, I considered us lucky.
Making sure Aspen had her evening food and her water dish was full, I let her out of her box. With an indigent hiss, she fumbled her way out of the box and hurried as fast as her unsteady legs could carry her.
“She looks ticked,” Beckett said as we watched Aspen’s white form slip like a drunken ghost into the shadows.
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she clawed up my office chair as retribution.”
“She’ll forgive you,” Beckett offered.
“Eventually.”
Ellie tsked. “That cat holds on to grudges like a crocodile on a zebra.”
“Whoa.” I laughed. “That’s intense.”
Beckett pointed at Ellie and squinted. “Let me guess… you’ve been watching animal documentaries with Asher.”
“Yep. I babysat him last week while his parents went out to dinner and he showed me his favorite one about African predators.”
“They ought to make one about dangerous office pets,” Beckett suggested. “Aspen could have her own segment.”
Quickly putting the office back in some semblance of order, I locked the front door. Outside the confines and safety of my office, the tornado’s destruction was significant, but not catastrophic. Tree limbs had been tossed onto the road and a few unfortunate vehicles had been mangled when a once proud oak toppled onto them.
One pile of wreckage did evoke a smile. The enormous billboard of Greg had been crumpled like a wad of paper and dropped unceremoniously on the side of the road. The fabric where one of his eyes had been printed was ripped, making him look like a suave, grinning pirate.
Despite the massive storm that seemed to have centralized over Button Blossom, the weather had a quick change of mood. The clouds had cleared out in time for us to see the final fading lights of sunset and in the periwinkle sky, stars were blossoming through pinpricks of twinkling light.
The big emotions of the past hour swelled up in Ellie, and she burst out crying. “I’m sorry!”